boozy banana muffins

So after much a do about baking I have finally found some space and time (in my new kitchen!) to bake, bake, bake... I have spent much of last week and this week cooking and baking galore! I missed it and loved it so much!

I decided to post this recipe because it has been personally requested across two oceans in a land far and cold! This has been adapted from Rachel Allen's Banana Bread recipe from her Bake bible which I previously tried before but realized it needed a bit of tweeking...
So here it is.... love the 75ml of Irishness in it!

Ingredients:
100g raisins
75ml Jameson whiskey
250g self raising flour
pinch of salt
1 tsp baking powder
100g caster sugar
90g softened butter
50g chopped walnuts
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp of orange zest (optional)
475g ripe bananas

In a small saucepan gently simmer the raisins and whiskey for 2-3 minutes. Turn off heat and leave to sit for 1 hour to absorb the goodness.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.

Meanwhile, sift flour, salt and baking powder into a large bowl. Add the sugar, butter and chopped walnuts and rub with your fingers until it makes a breadcrumb texture.

Whisk the eggs, vanilla extract and orange zest together and add to the mashed bananas and raisins. Then, make a well in the dry ingredients and add the wet mixture - slowly and thoroughly mix all ingredients together. Add enough mixture into muffin cases so that it is level to the top of the cups. I made approximately 12 medium muffins. Bake in oven for 22 minutes or until lightly browned and skewer test comes out clean.

I have finally come to terms that my muffins will never rise to perfection, but I'm okay with that because I know they taste damn good!

something needs to be cooked...

It's terrible... 4 months and no action in the kitchen leaves me hungry and unsatisfied with the endless cravings for good home cooked food! I have not sat down for a proper meal on my square table since then... However, I lie partially because the date that is shown from the last post is the date that sums up my life since - occupied. I have cooked... but nothing blog worthy as most of my time has been spent eating out or dashing for a bowl of cereal at night for dinner.

It's pathetic I know! I have even stopped with the baking *shock*. It must end now... soon.
IT WILL...

So stay tuned.....

the Colour Purple

the Three Stars

the Madness & Mortar of Any Baked Sunday

After much a do about baking, I held my first baking event, Any Baked Sunday. The events ethos goes back to the days of why I set up this blog, "to share recipes, venues and conversation around food" and of course the best company.

The turn out was fantastic and I was so impressed by those who rang my door bell. The whole experience had its super lows and super highs and the duration of preparation lasted 3 days. Any Baked Sunday was the first for everything.

I baked Chocolate Cheesecake, Coconut Macaroon Tart and Apple Tart Tatin. The latter two I had never made before. This fact did not stop me, and I was determined to make all three as if they were my routinely baked items - the home cooked feeling and taste was the ultimate goal coming straight from the oven. And of course, a minor detail, to be honest and as true to the recipes which meant the three treats had to be made from scratch with no cheating, short cuts or deviations. Which meant...

I had to make the sweet shortcrust pastry for the Coconut Tart and the puff pastry for the Tart Tatin myself!

I was excited to do this and knew it would be no mean feat. Friday at 8pm, I decided to prepare the pastries, knowing that they needed the hours in the fridge before use. Friday midnight, I was near mental breakdown and in tears for not understanding what went wrong with my preparation of the puff pastry. It turned into a big butter goop where the detrempe did not stick, and became a slippy greasy web of goo with the melted butter squeegeeing out from the unhinged folds. I went to shower and went to bed.

Saturday 6pm, it was time to head first into baking my favourite and most enjoyed, Chocolate Cheesecake. No problem, this will be the pick me up that will carry my confidence into tackling that puff pastry once more. That or I would need to make a quick dash for City Super - the only supermarket in Hong Kong to supply ready made puff pastry. But that thought was far too depressing. I think even more depressing than my prior Friday midnight madness.

But lo and behold! As Saturday night wore on, my preparations came together. Chocolate Cheecake baked. Sweet shortcrust pastry baked and ready for the filling the following day. Puff pastry... done! I managed to make my first puff pastry and I thoroughly reveled in the fact I succeeded and actually enjoyed the rolling, folding, turning, refrigerating, rolling, folding, turning, refrigerating, rolling... well you get the point. After three hours it was ready for my first Any Baked Sunday.

the Depressed Muffin

My muffins are depressed. No, literally. They do not rise and when they do they sink deep into the epitomy of bad baking. Therefore, I am depressed. Over the course of a year (or so) I have tried my muffin making skills on three different recipes and out of each three I have experimented with different combinations trying to take advantage of any alteration that may give rise to the ultimate muffin. I have continued this in hope (the very faintest but trustworthy hope) that one day I will open my oven door and find my beauties have grown!

I want muffins that are light, airy, tasty and big. No. Humungous. I want those muffins you find in coffee shops that you cannot finish. The ones that are outrageously expensive you have to share it with your friend just to justify the price but also the portion. Why can't I have a big muffin? Well I can if I go buy one but why can't I bake a big muffin?

My baking world has shrunk and it has become a dark, lonely, dead end road. A road that doesn't even have a decent bakery on the corner. If someone is out there who thinks they can guide me towards an oven light that has an answer.... please... please... show me the muffin way! I am sending an SOS.

the Sweet Potato & Lentil Soup

Blended but not stirred! This soup comes out outrageously thick so when you have finished making it take the final product as the concentrated version. When ready to eat, put 2 ladles worth of soup and half a cup of water into a bowl and reheat.

I have to admit that this is the best smelling, aromatic soup I have ever made and the taste lingers on afterwards!

So enjoy the smell, taste and the warm fuzzy feeling after eating the first spoonful!

Cook 100g of red lentils in boiling water for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, peel and cube the potatoes, chop the onion and finely chop two garlic cloves. When the lentils have cooked drain and leave to the side. Now melt a knob of butter on medium heat and add onion and cook until softened. Then add the garlic, about two tablespoons of curry powder and the potatoes. Cook these altogether for another 5 minutes.

Add the lentils with 1.2 litres of hot vegetable stock and cook fully for 12 - 15 minutes (or until potatoes are soft). Then blend until very smooth and season to taste. Serve with garlic bread or naan bread.

the Italian Irish Flag Soup

This is a light refreshing soup that is good for winter and even better for the coming spring. This is a low fat hearty wholesome soup! The pesto makes it Italian but the peas and potato make it Irish but of course besides all that it comes out the colours of the flags!

Ingredients:

1 sprig of Bay Leaves

1 sprig of Thyme

1 sprig of Basil

1 medium potato

2 medium carrots

1 leek stalk

3 celery stalks

1 can of butter beans

1 cup of frozen peas

2 Tbsp of pesto

pepper to taste

Add the herbs tied in a bunch or in a tea bag to 1 litre of water and boil. Chop the potato, carrots, leeks and celery into bite size chunks and add into the pot to boil for 10 minutes. Then let it simmer for another 10 minutes. Take out the bouquet garni (the herbs). Then add the butter beans and peas and simmer on low heat for 10 - 15 minutes. After all this time add the pesto and stir. Ladle into your bowl and eat.

This could not be an easier soup to make!

Make sure you come back for some soupy photos.

the Green Soup

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp of olive oil

2 medium potatoes

2 medium leeks

2 broccoli stalks

1 can of butter beans

2 cups of vegetable stock

a few cubes of hard blue cheese

pinch of tarragon

salt & pepper to taste

Chop up all the vegetables into small chunks. Heat the olive oil on low heat and add the potatoes and broccoli stalks. Cover and allow these to sweat for a while - you will notice the broccoli turns a bright green. Then add the leeks, cover and sweat some more but make sure you keep stirring!

Add the 2 cups of vegetable stock and bring to a boil. Once the potatoes fall off your knife (the one you stabbed into them) then you can reduce the heat and add the salt, pepper and tarragon. Take off the hob and blend all the soup until there are only small chunks showing. Make sure you don't puree it or it looks like bad baby food. Now return all back into the pot and add the butter beans and cheese - stirring on low heat. When the cheese has melted it is ready to eat!

Bon appetit!

the Walnut Maple Roll

I have tried Panash Bakery & Café numerous times as they have an outlet one block from my house – and they are a reliable source for no fuss fresh baguettes and baked goods. My favourite of theirs is the Walnut Maple Roll, which looks very similar to a Cinnamon Roll but far tastier. Yes, I’m sure that sounds very subjective.

I took a stroll through yet another new mall in Tsim Sha Tsui’s iSquare. Not much was opened but that was not the point. The point being it was very uninteresting so I thought I would start my search then, at Panash Bakery & Café. It was a new shop of theirs that opened – the only difference is it seemed much more upper class than their usual outlets. No matter, I had my coffee and realised that they did a HK$55 tea set which is not bad with a 6 range choice of cakes added to a tea or coffee.

But this wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted my Walnut Maple Roll so I decided to order my cappuccino and cross over from the seated café into their bakery and buy my Roll. I discovered a new delight aptly called the Tea Time Cake. I thought why not – it looked different and was only HK$6. I sat down and ready to drink my cappuccino I was told they need to double charge me for my HK$8.50 favourite - my Roll. Not that that would have been a big dent into my budget but the fact they shun you and then charge you for eating their own product in their café confused me. Anyway, the lady who challenged me was rather nice in the fact that I said I didn’t fancy their cakes or tea set and just wanted my Roll instead. So she said, OK but don’t eat it in the open. I sat quietly in my corner, stealing little pieces of my Roll every now and then from its plastic bag and dipping it into my not so great cappuccino.

By the way, the Tea Time Cake was a great new find, it held within its moist sponge, fruit and nuts and just like my Gran’s infamous carrot cake! And then I footed my cappuccino bill – HK$38 plus 10%. Never again.

Panash Bakery & Café

G04 Ocean Terminal, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong

G/F, 1 Soares Avenue, Ho Man Tin, Kowloon, Hong Kong

1/F, Shop #158-159, 8 Chung Wa Road, East Point City, Tseung Kwan O, Hong Kong

G/F, 250 King's Road, North Point, Hong Kong

G/F, 163 Queen's Road East, Wan Chai, Hong Kong

baking into 2010

After all the baking done during Christmas, I might have thought I could stop for a break…. which I have, with a freshly baked muffin here and there.

My break doesn’t stop me exploring however, the baked goods of others. The next coming months I will be doing research on the best of baked goods here in Hong Kong. From restaurants, café’s, bars to random house treats, I want to know what is out there and what I am competing with. Not that I am selling my baked goods, yet!

So keep coming back to see what home made feeling I can get from spending and eating more and more dollars!